USA > Indiana > A history of education in Indiana > Part 28
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37
"The trustees of the several townships, towns, and cities shall have the power to levy a special tax in their respective townships, towns, or cities for the construction, renting, or repairing of school-houses, for providing furniture, school apparatus, and fuel therefor, and for the payment of other necessary expenses of the school, except tuition; but no tax shall exceed the sum of fifty cents on each one hundred dol- lars' worth of taxable property, and one dollar on each poll, in any one year, and the income from said tax shall be de- nominated the special school revenue."
Table of Special School Revenue since 1865. Local Building Tax.
1865-1890.
1865
$424,646
1878
$1,585,942
1866
666,672
1879
1,168,367
1867
854,762
1880
1,076,444
1868
1,050,139
1881
1,017,159
1869
1,073,006
1882
1,135,359
1870
1,164,356
1883
1,334,879
1871
1,174,383
1884
1,461,257
1872
1,375,283
1885
1,545,740
1873
1,577,978
1886
1,586,064
1874
1,733,785
1887
1,589,306
1875
1,699,198
1888
1,588,910
1876
1,825,316
1889
1,719,039
1877
1,625,883
1890
1,777,598
$35,031,471
Of this tax the State-i. e., the townships, towns, and cities-has collected and expended in permanent improve- ments and furnishings in twenty-five years $35,000,000: $1,- 400,000 annually, or more than $1,000 yearly to each of the school corporations of the State. The value of apparatus, for which in part this special revenue has gone, has increased
333
SCHOOL REVENUES.
from nothing at the birth of the system to more than three quarters of a million in 1890, and the money put into perma- nent investments, in the way of school properties, aggregates $14,217,912, or ten times what it was but a generation ago.
All State taxes, interest on the common school fund, and unclaimed fees collected are paid into the State treasury. The aggregate of all other revenues available in the counties is reported to the State Superintendent, who, on the fourth Monday in May and on the first of January, "apportions the whole sum * to the several counties of the State, accord- ing to the last enumeration of children therein, . . . with- out taking into consideration the revenue derived from the Congressional Township School Fund."
One copy each of this apportionment list is filed with the Auditor of State and the Treasurer of State, and one copy with each of the county auditors, the county treasurers, and the county superintendents. Immediately upon the receipt of this official advice and apportionment, by which every child in the State shares equally with every other in these revenues, the auditor of each county makes " apportionment of the school revenue to which his county is entitled to the several townships and incorporated towns and cities of the county, which apportionment shall be paid to the school treasurer of each township and incorporated town and city by the County Treasurer."
"In making the said apportionment and distribution thereof, the auditor shall ascertain the amount of the con- gressional township school revenue belonging to cach city, town, and township, and shall apportion the other school revenue so as to equalize the amount of available school revenue for tuition to each city, town, and township, as near as may be according to the enumeration of children therein, and report the amount apportioned to the Superintendent of Public Instruction, verified by affidavit; Provided, however, That in no case shall the income of the Congressional Town-
* Less $10,000, apportioned to the State Normal School.
334
UNDER TIIE NEW CONSTITUTION, 1851-'91.
ship Fund belonging to any congressional township be diminished by such apportionment, or diverted, or distrib- uted to any other township."
The policy indicated grows out of (1) the local instead of State management of the school section, and (2) the separa- tion of the two funds by Supreme Court decision in 1853. The injury to the schools is counteracted by the "equaliza- tion " ; but the policy involves a complicated book-keeping, and is objectionable.
The constitutionality of this method of apportionment was affirmed by the Supreme Court in two cases brought from Johnson County in 1855 .*
All school revenues are managed by the school trustees.
The local tuition tax is levied by the civil authorities- i. e., by the trustees of the civil townships and the incor- porated towns and by the common council of cities ; the com- mon school revenue, including the State tax and unclaimed fees, is apportioned by the State Superintendent; all local taxes are assessed by the auditor and collected by the treas- urer of the county interested, and the combined revenues are distributed, as given elsewhere, to the several townships, towns, and cities by the auditor. But no funds are used except under the authority of the school trustee or trustees.
The following table will serve to show, with fair accu- racy, the amounts of the several revenues constituting the school resources for each year since 1863, and the approxi- mate total expenditures for those years. The history of the State bonds covers the twenty-three years only from 1867 to 1889, inclusive ; and that of local tuition taxes since 1872 only. In a quarter of a century the State has put a full hundred million dollars into her public schools, forty mill- ions of which have come from taxes, either State or local. It is worth noting, in passing, that liquor licenses have fur- nished over five million dollars of this total revenue:
* Decisions rendered June 11, 1856, and June 16, 1856, the former by Judge Perkins, the latter by Judge Gookins.
Table showing Growth of School Revenues since 1864.
STATE REVENUES.
LOCAL REVENUES.
Taxes.
County revenue.
State bond interest.
Fees.
State in- debtedness
Miscel- laneous.
'Delinquen- cies.
Liquor licenses.
Congr. twp. revenue.
Local tuition.
Special school.
1864.
$492,325
$90,416
$433
$50,000
$52,350
$51.750
$152,278
1865.
.
910,585
111,425
1,585
50,000
24,000
84,225
150.044
666,673
$1.998,537
1867 ...
937,843
98,885
1,286
40,574
76,500
150,000
854,762
2,310,677
1868 .. . .
864,548
97,629
202,025
1,038
50,000
117,228
80,000
154,037
1.102,441
2,668,946
1870. . ..
1,012,358
101,815
213,079
451
50,000
91.586
81,700
146,549
1,220,997
2,918,535
1871 ....
1,051,439
112,650
223,741
985
35,750
99,809
144,781
1,200,000
2,869,155
1872 ... .
1,070,302
160,840
223,741
500
6,800
108,280
146,980
1,258.927
3,076,370
1873.
1,190,627
189.455
234,065
7,194
27,383
40,213
98,988
$530.668
1,517,398
3,835,991
1874 ....
1,448,246
176,738
234,287
2,504
$6,266
217,562
167,231
768,142
1,882,094
5,047,989
1876. ...
1,440,693
198.050
234,287
912
24,184
199,612
183,190
734,202
1,925,179
4,932,309
1877 . . ..
1,494,330
203,389
234,287
1,962
5,658
193,107
186,418
648,388
1,804,947
4,772,486
1878.
1,456,834
209,325
234,287
1,383
884
169,238
188,302
602,469
1,585,942
4,452,664
1879.
1,519,792
213,132
234,287
895
Less
193,512
198,248
589,093
1,564,536
4,507,642
5,853
172,324
178,973
611,586
1,461,891
1881. . ..
1,442,286
221,155
234,287
666
256,020
196,205
625,843
1,452,382
4,428,844
1882. .
..
.
·
......
259,235
184,448
673,077
1,272,718
4,217,857
1883.
1,374,282
227,102
234,287
1,820
260,397
190.166
684,089
1,434,589
4,406,733
1884.
1,408,113
232,061
234,287
1,234
279,886
192,086
806,415
1,524,549
4,678,674
1885.
1,416,884
242,554
234,287
56,710
308,454
202.390
910,016
1,545,740
4,917,035
1886. . ..
1.448,447
242,561
234,287
43,249
318.472
198,544
977,083
1,586,064
5,048,707
1887 ....
1,482,869
240,000
234,287
331,257
197,748
974,452
1,589.306
5,049,919
1888.
...
1,402,651
218,102
234,287
20,383
344,343
218.119
1,208,237
1,588.910
5,235,032
1889 .. ..
1,464,257
225,000
234,287
..
390,072
199,165
1.053,304
1,719,039
5,285.124
1890. . . .
1,462,090
454,289
Transferr'd
to the coun
ties by act of 1889.
.
281
50,000
54,782
78,415
154,633
·
·
1,150,000
2,778,118
1869.
987,563
108,710
213,025
1,250
50,000
23,865
89,258
154,447
·
·
·
.
.
92,998
35,000
110,153
829,023
1,549,870
4,478.819
1875. . . .
1,577,533
192,272
234,287
2,602
....
.....
.
.
.
1880.
234,287
455
·
.
.
. .
.
....
.
.
..
.
.
.. .
·
. 1 ....
...
....
.
. .
. .
...
.
397,176
188,188
1,300,784
1,777,598
5,580,123
..
SCHOOL REVENUES.
335
TOTALS.
YEARS.
551,399
97,673
$424,646
1866 ... .
.
...
1,394,770
197,312
234,287
2,010
..
...
..
$150,827
336
UNDER THE NEW CONSTITUTION, 1851-'91.
CHAPTER XXVI.
LIBRARIES.
ONE of the most promising of educational agencies-one dangerously seductive to the unthinking, but that may be made fruitful of good also, though generally poorly under- stood-is the library. It can be easily made available to the school and the home, to the young and the old, as a supple- ment to lessons and formal teaching, and as a university in itself. Schools have scarcely begun to use books as their all-sided helpfulness suggests, and the opinion is yet not in- frequent that they belong-except texts-to the after-school period.
The chapter is written with the thought present that libraries are as legitimate a part of the State's equipment of education as are schools and teachers, universities, and lab- oratories.
1. The Beginnings.
The first libraries, perhaps, among any people are private ones. Public sentiment is but the uppermost, and in gen- eral the fittest, individual sentiment taking on accepted form. Neighborhood, class, society, church, subscription, circulat- ing, and loan libraries soon follow. As early as 1807 Vin- cennes had record of a small library, which within ten years had grown to 700 volumes. Among its incorporators was General W. H. Harrison. The library is still in existence, and has some 2,000 volumes.
Among these first libraries, semi-private, was that of the New Harmony Community, from 1825 to 1840. The collec- tions of the Owens and the Maclures, while held for many years as private, were yet freely put at the disposal of the reading public. In 1838 was formed the "Workingman's Institute and Library." It received liberal donations of property, and money, books, and works of art, and was fairly endowed. In 1846 the village was visited by Sir Charles Lyell, the eminent Scotch geologist, who in his notes speaks
337
LIBRARIES.
flatteringly of the community's museum, library, and art collection, and the general intelligence of the place. The library still remains.
2. County Libraries.
The earliest State provision, however, for libraries in In- diana was section 5, in the article upon Education, in the Constitution of 1816. It provided that "the General Assem- bly, at the time they lay off a new county, shall cause at least ten per cent to be reserved out of the proceeds of the sale of town lots in the seat of justice of each county for the use of a public library for such county; and at the same session they shall incorporate a library company, under such rules and regulations as will best secure its permanence and extend its benefits." After the original incorporation it was required that seven trustees should be chosen by popular vote of the citizens of the county annually. Later, also, it was provided that the county commissioners might appro- priate yearly not less than twenty nor more than seventy- five dollars for the increase of the library. By the law of 1852 the clerk, auditor, and recorder were given the library in charge, and made trustees for that purpose. Every in- habitant of the county, under specified conditions, was en- titled to use the books.
Immediately upon the passage of the original act, libra- ries were established in Dubois, Pike, Ripley, Randolph, Law- rence, Vigo, Vanderburg, Spencer, Monroe, Clark, Daviess, Sullivan, Perry, Crawford, and other counties. That is, they were legalized ; some of them were opened. But money was not plenty, books were expensive, and a pioneer life offered few readers and less leisure. The reservation of the tithe was not always made; in some instances it seemed not to have been officially reported, in others the funds merely lay unused. At best, the amount of income prior to 1852 was not great. Of the libraries established, most were either closed finally through neglect, or merged, in later years, with more prosperous organizations. A few remain.
338
UNDER THE NEW CONSTITUTION, 1851-'91.
The Monroe County Library was regularly incorporated December 31, 1821, and is still in existence and considerably used, as are a few others. It has about 2,000 volumes, has a small income, and receives occasional additions. It has really done a valuable service to the community.
In 1847 the Marion County Library had, as reported, about 600 volumes. The first books had been purchased three years before. At the time of the organization of the township libraries (1854) it comprised a large collection of well-assorted books, was open on Saturday to the people of the county, and had $2,500 of invested funds. By 1867 there were 2,100 volumes, 132 subscribers, and the library had an assured income of $275 a year. This has been perhaps one of the most successful libraries of the kind in the State. It has now over 5,000 volumes, exclusive of maps and legisla- tive and political documents, a reserve fund of $2,000, and receives annually from the county commissioners an appro- priation of $75.
The Delaware County Library formed the nucleus of the present public library of Muncie.
Other acts modifying the management of these libraries were passed in 1824, 1838, 1845, and under the new law of 1852. The original features in general remained.
In 1875 eleven counties made returns, including statistics concerning this class of libraries, three only reporting funds yielding an aggregate yearly income of $1,218. Nearly 13,000 volumes in the aggregate were reported, but with an incon- siderable circulation, and few additions being made.
3. School District Libraries.
In an elaborate act of the Legislature, in 1837, school dis- tricts that had supported schools for at least three months in the year were authorized to raise, by a majority vote of the resident householders and freeholders of the district, a tax, not to exceed twenty dollars in any one year, for "a . library for the use of the children, teachers, parents, and guardians," to be managed by the district trustees, and with
339
LIBRARIES.
the district treasurer ex officio librarian. The same act pro- vided further that a part, not to exceed one fourth, of the public-school moneys in the township treasury might be also set apart for the establishment of a library, or for the increase of a library once begun. The privilege was reaffirmed by an act passed in 1841.
No mention is made of the matter in subsequent legisla- tion, and no record is preserved of any such library-or, at most, of any that survived. The motive was good. But there were few schools, and even less means for their main- tenance. Libraries were luxuries, and even school comforts were wanting in the districts.
4. Township Libraries.
The township library system was a direct outgrowth of the original idea of one library for each school; just as the township organization superseded the earlier local adminis- trative policy. As late as 1850 Prof. Mills's notion included no more (no less ?) than a library in each district-a modifi- cation only of the provisions of the law of 1837. In the fifth address submitted to the thirty-fourth session of the Gen- eral Assembly his masterly appeal for public libraries makes no mention of township control of them, though there is every reason to believe these formed in his thought an integral part of a State-established and State-controlled system.
Such plan, however, can not seem strange or inexplicable. A half dozen States had already established libraries under permissive legislation, notably Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island among the New England States, and New York and Ohio-all before 1850, and all dependent more or less upon the local district sentiment. New York took the initial step in 1835, but revised the law upon a liberal scale three years later, appropriating from State funds $55,000 annually, but requiring the districts to raise each its share of a like amount. By 1852 there were reported more than a million and a half of volumes, or about one hundred and
340
UNDER THE NEW CONSTITUTION, 1851-'91.
fifty volumes to each school, at a cost of a million and a quarter of dollars.
Almost without exception, in the neighboring States, the laws were permissive only. Moneys so appropriated to libra- ries might be diverted to other uses, local authorities were left, generally, to select their own books, and local interests allowed to interfere with their maintenance. As a result, even under the most favorable considerations, libraries lan- guished, books were lost, and interest diminished. The ex- perience of a dozen other States prior to 1852 was an em- phatic word of warning to Indiana touching the management of school libraries.
The new law-June 14, 1852-required that there should be assessed, collected, and paid, after the manner of State and county revenues, a tax of a quarter of a mill on each. dollar of property taxable for State purposes, and twenty- five cents for every person liable to pay a poll tax for State purposes, the tax to be continued for two years. The pro- ceeds were to be applied exclusively to the purchase of town- ship school libraries, under the direction of the State Board of Education. The moneys were turned into the State treas- ury, and expended only upon order of the State department.
A study of the undertaking discovers two interesting characteristics:
First, the library was a township affair; not a privilege of the district. The basis of the distribution was to be at first the population, afterward changed to the school enumer- ation of the township. The manager and responsible officer was the township trustee. Its location was fixed by the voters of the township. Its housing and shelving were a township obligation. The librarian was one of the three trustees of the township, or a person appointed and em- ployed by them.
But the library was also, and not less, a State enterprise. It was provided for under a general law. The privileges of its possession and use were not optional even with the town- ship. The books were purchased by a State tax. Through-
341
LIBRARIES.
out the State the selection was uniform, and the basis of distribution common. The duties of the trustee were pre- scribed, and reports required to the general office. In this was the promise of the most wholesome administration. It was the one feature in the law that hinted at permanence. Here, in the absence of local caprice, or fluctuation, or igno- rance, with a control-responsible control-there was a chance for the exercise of a generous policy. It was meant that libraries, like the common schools, for the children of the State, should be maintained by the property of the State. The richer sections were to have no advantage over the poorer. Each child was expected to enjoy his share of the proceeds in the general distribution.
This was the theory. How far the ideal was missed will appear in the sequel. By the revision of 1855 some minor modifications were made, and the tax, collected for two years, after being suspended for a period, was reincluded for a sin- gle levy. Under the former provisions, out of an assessment of $186,327 there was collected all but about one thousand dollars; by the second assessment $90,000 were realized- more than a quarter of a million dollars in the aggregate, ninety-five per cent of which went to the purchase of books.
An analysis of the plan of administering the law reveals some peculiar features.
While it was originally intended, as the wording of the law implies, to provide one library for each township, sec- tion 141, as passed, required the distribution of ten libraries to counties having a population of 15,000 inhabitants and upward; eight libraries to counties whose population was from 10,000 to 15,000; and in counties of less than 10,000 in- habitants, six libraries. It is obvious that while the distribu- tion was meant to be equitable as to population, it was far from uniform as to townships. In seven counties only were the number of libraries, under the first distribution, and the number of townships the same. Ten counties had each more libraries than townships, and eight more libraries than all school corporations, including, besides townships, incorpo-
23
312
UNDER THE NEW CONSTITUTION, 1851-'91.
rated towns and cities. In seventy counties they averaged less than one to each township. For the State, 690 libraries were distributed to 938 townships. Incorporated towns and cities were generally ignored, except as they might be made convenient places of deposit for the including township.
Under the first distribution were sent out 221,490 volumes, or 321 volumes to each of 690 libraries. No juveniles were included for children under twelve years of age. About three tenths of each collection were supposed to be children's books; the remainder were for youth and the mature. The law itself prohibited the inclusion of sectarian books. Of works upon agriculture there were 9,000, or almost 100 to each county in the State. Each library was given a copy of Barnard's School Architecture, and later also another known as the Pennsylvania School Architecture.
Although one third of the books were set apart for youth, a careful examination of the list serves to discover very few -a much smaller proportion, indeed, than, upon the most liberal construction, could be regarded as adapted to the use of children under fifteen years of age. There were the Rollo books and other stories by Abbott, pioneer sketches, Mary Howitt's delightful pictures, a few plainly told stories of travel, some biographies, Bonner's United States, and occasional volumes on science, especially natural history, familiarly written. But the number was small compared with those for older minds.
The list on history and biography is particularly com- plete and satisfactory. Almost no great name is omitted. The selection was standard and remains so. Macaulay, and Hallam, and Robertson, and Guizot, and Grote are supple- mented by Bancroft, and Lossing, and Prescott; Schoolcraft, D'Aubigné, and Knight; Headley and Hildreth; Frothing- ham, Neal, and Thiers. Sparks, in American biography, and Abbott had noble company in Brougham, Gilfillan, Irving, and Young, besides many of less note.
Of travels there were offered Taylor and Fremont, rich in the mysteries of two continents; Lynch and explorations
343
LIBRARIES.
on the Dead Sea; Wheeler's Herodotus, Spalding's Japan, and Perry's expedition; Schoolcraft among the Indians ; Lewis and Clarke on the Frontier; Stansbury on the Great Salt Lake; Kane in the Arctic regions; and Durbin in Europe.
Many books also were bought in sets. Besides Abbott, already mentioned, there were the complete works of Dick, Irving, and De Quincy; the Cabinet Histories of the States (12 vols.); translations of the Greek and Roman classics (28 vols.); the annuals of scientific discovery up to 1857; Sparks's American Biography (20 vols.); Hawthorne's Sto- ries and Tales; Littell's Living Age (50 vols.); and Jardin's Naturalists' Library (40 vols.).
The fact that, notwithstanding its name, the township library was not for schools alone, explains in a measure the wide range of the selections. Teachers even had a liberal allowance of professional or semi-professional literature. As indicating something of the amount and character of such literature forty years ago, the list is here inserted: Page's Theory and Practice of Teaching, The Teacher and Parent, The Daughter at School, My School and Schoolmasters, Mann's Lectures on Education, The Teachers' Miscellany, Todd's Student's Manual, Olin's Educational Lectures, Bar- nard's National Education, Abbott's The Teacher, Barnard's Normal Schools, Hall's Lectures on School-keeping, Thom- son's Educational Essays, Mansfield's American Education, Mortimer's College Life, The District School as it Was, Eliot's Harvard College, Abercrombie's Intellectual Powers, Way- land'sIntellectual Philosophy, and Upham's Philosophy.
Such a collection of educational works in every township to-day, selected from current lists, would afford a fruitful means of professional training. This library was doubtless, by many teachers, well used forty years ago. The older teachers still speak with pleasure of the first appearance of The Theory and Practice and the republication of Hall's Lectures, while the first of these, Mann's Lectures on Educa- tion, Barnard's works, American Education, and others are
344
UNDER THE NEW CONSTITUTION, 1851-'91.
still in print-some of them accepted authorities even now.
Little criticism can be made upon the library as a whole. Every work could doubtless have been justified at the time. The trivial, the vicious, the sectarian, the controversial, were well excluded. There were books for all classes and for all ages-after childhood. But one is forced to question the need or the demand, in a pioneer State, with a school system scarcely two years old, of Macaulay's Essays or Hallam's Literature-much as they are respected to-day. It is difficult to think there could have been much call for or use made of McCosh On Divine Government, The Modern British Es- sayists, Kames's Elements of Criticism, Duer's Constitutional Jurisprudence, or Story's or Kent's Commentaries, or Goethe's complete works, The Logic of Mathematics, or Plato in six volumes. Yet all these-besides the Encyclopædia Metropoli- tana in twenty-nine volumes, and the Encyclopædia Bri- tannica in twenty-one volumes-were bought in quantities and put, if not into every library, into many of them.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.